Tense-aspect conditioned agent marking in Kanakanavu, an Austronesian language of Taiwan

Abstract This article examines two types of lexical effects in the voice system Kanakanavu, an Austronesian language Taiwan. The first concerns a well-attested phenomenon literature: interactions between semantic transitivity verbs and their ability (or lack thereof) to undergo alternation. second that is typologically areally rare western context – differential agent marking. pronominal Kanakanavu’s patient-/undergoer-voice construction differentially case-marked depending on tense-aspect value clause. However, are found how marked interpreted. When dynamic used, omitted agents perfective clauses interpreted as coreferential with specific referent mentioned prior discourse, but those non-perfective having generic reference, backgrounded, and/or not centrally involved situation expressed by verb. stative alternation imperfective verb forms may have various interpretation agent. In some verbs, prototypical perfective, experiencer imperfective. other perfective/non-perfective has do whether change state involved, without any interpretation. study explores manifest across both elicited natural discourse data. It also presents marking Kanakanavu neither typical nor representative context.